Wednesday, December 05, 2007

I remember back in the early eighties while I in college I would go home to Jamaica every chance I got. Seems I was always home sick back then. What was amazing to me was to see how some of the kids who I grew up with were living in freshly built mansions, complete with tennis courts and three car garages. These kids didn't have a pot to piss in when I left, but now they were blowing up. Of course I knew how they made their money. They made it the old fashion way, selling drugs. Ganga was our biggest export from Jamaica in the seventies and eighties, and there are many Jamaicans who will tell you that it kept our economy afloat. I will never forget the stories of planes taking off and landing all through the night on rural country roads after people would dash out of the hills to construct makeshift runways with home made lanterns. They would load those marijuana planes quicker than a NASCAR pit crew and off they would go.

Of course all that marijuana and all those drugs were coming to A-merry-ca. This country had a huge so called drug problem then, and nothing has changed since. Reagan and Bush (41) were in power during those years, and in spite of their so called "war on drugs ", and Nancy Reagan's anorexic ass crying "just say no", their war was doomed to failure. "Oh field you just want them to legalize marijuana so that your Jamaican ass can smoke it." Well that's half right. I do want it to be legalized, but I don't smoke it......well I did once but I didn't inhale......well maybe I did inhale, but that was a long time ago......and I did have some ganga soup once...enough of my personal life. This post isn't about the field's past indiscretions.

A drug dealer once asked me if I ever saw drugs offered at a discount or if I ever saw drugs being advertised? Of course not, because drug dealers don't have to offer discounts and they don't have to advertise; it's called supply and demand. That is what drives drug sales, and that is why some young knuckle head on a corner will risk serious jail time or death to sell rock cocaine to suburban kids for long dollars.

When the DEA working with Colombian police killed Pablo Escobar in 1993 on a Medellin roof top, they thought they had reached the tipping point of the war on drugs. But boy were they wrong. According to Rolling Stone magazine, the drug policy under Reagan and Bush was largely conducted in a "fog of ignorance". Bill Bennett's dumb ass spent 12 billion on the drug war and used Naval submarines, torpedoes, and F16's all for nothing. Congress panicked and passed tough laws to give poor crack cocaine users longer prison sentences than the wealthy powder snorting Wall Street users. As a result, an entire generation of poor black people have spent their lives behind bars, and have returned to society with no skills, no jobs, and no hope for a productive existence.

Again, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, If Richard Nixon had just listened back then to all those reports of a generation of soldiers coming home from Vietnam stoned with drug habits, things might have turned out differently. Nixon actually appointed a panel who considered decriminalizing marijuana and buying up the worlds opium supply to prevent it from being converted to heroin. But no, in typical rethuglican fashion, Nixon caved to the law and order crowd and A-merry-ca's fear of the hippies and those Negroes in the urban areas. What we have as a result is an out of touch and and fool hardy drug policy in this country which is getting worse every day.

I am not surprised to hear of the RAND Study that says that military efforts and imprisoning addicts is the least effective way to fight the scourge of drugs. They said that top decrease drug use the only thing that works is treatment. How about that? Good old fashioned treatment.

I bet treatment would curb A-merry-can's appetite and thus their demand for drugs. And then my friends down in Jamaica would have to cut back on their lavish spending habits. But unfortunately for the folks at the DEA, my friends are still laughing all the way to the bank. Or should I say the money launderers.

51 comments:

I wrote a post on legalizing marijuana. The post is no longer on my blog because I accidently deleted my original blog and had to star over. If marijuana was legalize my illness qualifies to receive medicinal marijuana, my doctors already said they would write the prescription if it were legal in my state. Unfortunately, legalizing it was shot down for my state in May 2007. I want to share a few points from that post with you and your readers.

The University of Mississippi sends out seven cans of marijuana to seven patients across the country with an FDA stamp on it.

For the last twenty nine years in this country the federal government has been, on every seventeenth of the month, been distributing canisters of medicinal marijuana to patients across the country. They started with 21 [patients] and now it is down to seven, because they are the only people that have remained alive. The longest surviving federal marijuana smoker in the United States, Irvin Rosenfeld, is alive and well.

My personal believe why the federal government set laws to keep medicinal marijuana illegal and states such as Tennessee are not willing to pass legislation to legalize marijuana is because of pharmaceutical lobbyist. I take several prescription medications for just ONE prescription (the injection I take daily) to slow the progression of living with multiple sclerosis cost $1600.00 a month a total of $19,200.00 a year. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know WHY pharmaceutical companies DO NOT want medicinal marijuana legalized.

The conclusion and recommendation from the federal funded Compassionate IND program is on page 49 for the below link.

http://www.medicalcannabis.com/PDF/Chronic_Cannabis.pdf

The Compassionate IND program was proving medicinal marijuana was beneficial. The following link explains why Bush #1 killed the Compassionate IND program. Because of the government lack of compassion, chronically ill patients have to continue to take man made drugs with severe and fatal side effects.

The law enforcement policy relating to drugs is now and has been historically about nabbing black folk. The government is very aware how effective treatment might be. That is the reason that treatment is the major focus of legislation relating to crystal meth, a drug associated with whites. Even though meth use clearly has a broader impact than crack was ever thought to have, including environmental damage and contamination--there is no discussion about stepping up sentencing for meth use and dealing in particular.

When I challenged an U.S. Attorney about this perceived disparity of treatment, he immediately started to excuse meth users and domestic dealers observing that "most meth is not even produced in the U.S. It comes from Mexico." For this U.S. Attorney, this meant that it was a better focus for them to go after the sources, i.e., Mexican illegals, than to go after (I guess) the almost innocent and hapless majority white dealer and user.

As you all know, that argument about going after the sources (because Blacks don't own planes or boats) has fallen on completely deaf ears. However, with white-aassociated acts the federal prosecutor makes the argument for the meth dealer and user --and develops policy and prctices based on that perception.

And the legislature--at least in my state--has focused all of their consideration of meth on treatment.

So, white folks know the benefits of treatment. They just don't intend to benefit us.

Field,This is off topic, but PLEASE consider bringing back your feature list of House Negro, Field Negro, Patio Negro. It's hilarious (and so very true)! Your sidebar feature isn't quite the same, because you don't necessarily go into detail about how the folks came to be included. Give this some thought, ok, Filed?--Feeling You in Florida!

You know, the criminalization of marijuana is the central hypocracy of the state, meant to justify huge expenditures on prisons, police and military (well, before the Iraq Project anyway). Knock that down and I think a lot of other social advances, unrelated to drug policy, would almost spontaniously take place.

By central hypocracy I mean that outlawing pot is recognized by nearly all as pointless (and in some medical cases counterproductive), and is kept in place only by an old Puritan inertia. (Why, oh why, do 'Merrycans hate feeling good about feeling good?)

Clear the dumb pot laws away and people might figure out that other social changes can happen without the roof caving in or god sending their asses to hell.

Blinders off, thanks for that post. I didn't even consider the medical issues associated with marijuana,so thanks for reminding me. I think if more of these poli-trick-sters had a personal stake in this fight, they would be changing their tune. All it would take is a loved one to be dying of cancer and suffering frmo some serious pain for them to reconsider their positions. It happens all the time. (Think stem cell)

Raven was also right about the issues of treatment with certain drugs and who it effects. I don't always agree with raven, but he(she) is dead on with this analysis.

"Feeling you in Florida", I hear you, and I will consider :)

"You know, the criminalization of marijuana is the central hypocracy of the state, meant to justify huge expenditures on prisons, police and military"

Pot ain't legalized because the alcohol lobby in Washington DC is as powerful as the insurance and oil lobbies.

It has nothing to do with pot being a "gateway drug" or because of health concerns, it's all about Murkins being allowed by their Big Daddy government to alter their mood but they have to use beer, wine, whiskey or vodka, but no pot.

What pisses my fat ass off are the folks with AIDS, cancer, glucoma, and MS, who benefit from some reefer ar told they can't have by their Big Daddy government responding to pressure from the alcohol lobbyists.

I say fuck that and fuck them. If you want to smoke pot, smoke it and let the chips fall where they fall.

RavenR: Don't tell me that treatment is the focus of Meth Addicts because my brother is doing a year for making his own supply, no distribution, no endangerment charges, they didn't even find Meth. They found precursor chemicals and not even all that are needed to make a successful batch. When they busted him he had a bowl packed full of bud and a baggy with about 1/8th sitting on the coffee table and didn't even confiscate it. All they cared about was the fact that he could possibly make meth. When my sister went to find his cat after the cops left his place the weed was still there!!

I'm glad he got busted because he needs to change and rehab doesn't change shit (at the very least it'll slow his ass down for a year, unless he gets hooked on heroin in jail), but its not a white/black issue. Its a poor vs rich issue. Poor people learned how to embellish their high with crack and duplicated it with meth. If you are paying $100 a gram with coke you are a druggie, but not scum. If you get the same high for $5 or $10 bucks you are a scumbag.

Legalize it all.

Field: Jamaica sounds good right now as I look out at my snow-covered yard. Fuck Currier and Ives!

Tammy - It is our duty as citizens to agitate for change and try to make this country constantly better. Question:have you thought of just not reading this blog? Sorry, Field. NE Way. I loved that RS article and thanks for posting the Rand Study link. Here's my question - couldn't we legalize, regulate and tax pot and use the tax money to create more treatment programs for 'harder' drugs? Also - what is the point of the rigorous vetting process that a federal judge goes through if a box grid is going to make the ruling for them? Mandatory minimums make NO sense to me.

So mary jane makes a few Jamaicans rich...poppy funds extremists and the Taliban in Afghanistan and other places and coke has made many Latino Papis rich. Basically drugs are a commodity just like oil, and the ones who control it create abundant wealth for themselves.

It's a wonder though how all commodities seemed to get overconsumed here in the U.S. I've never heard of any other country having a "war" on drugs. What a misnomer.

Just like the government came around to legalizing the consumption of alcohol (banning it gave rise to Al Capone, Bugsy Siegal, Meyer Lansky and La Cosa Nostra) to decrimininalize it, they should do the same thing to drugs.

If you get addicted, there's too many rehabs to count to get you off the stuff. People medicate to deal with the shyt we call the WORLD. Some deal with it better than others, but it sure would cut down on the killing and robbing, that's for sure.

And when the government had Reagan in the cross-hairs for that Iran-Contra mess back in the 80s, they punted the football away, and allowed him to escape. Reagan's involvement in the drug trafficking pretty much legalized it then and there.

Before I went to law school I worked for Kurt Scmoke when he was Mayor of Murder City Numero Duo, Bo'mo'. People scoffed at his ideas about legalization and control of even hard drugs like powdered and rock cocaine, and of bud, of course. You can have a treatment based system w/out full legalization. It;s just that yeah the powers that be don't want it for any number of reasons silly and sinister. The thing is, you really have to look at the base reasons why folks from Philly crackheads to white trash land meth heads to suburban pill poppers to Baltimore her-ron fiends get high: they feel their lives are pointless. Field, poverty/education/jobs issues aside, the treatmnt budget to ameliorate that problem would eat up the GNP of this country!!!

FYI first decent snowfall of the winter in DC, and the traffic is crazy once again (yesterday). I will channel Ron Paul when I say that folks from sunnier climes (legal or illegal immigrants) will give you a heart attack far more readily on the roads down here than harried housewives in mini vans and brothers in their gangsta lean with working window defroster!!! Yeah, i said it!!! Learn English, m-fs. And after that, when you get a LEGAL license, learn to (1) put your eight kids in car seats like the rest of and (2) learn to drive on ice and snow!!!

Chris, good points about the base reasons for some of our drug problems. And yes the GNP would rise when people get better jobs and spend their money to generate the real economy rather than an underground one.

"Yeah, i said it!!! Learn English, m-fs. And after that, when you get a LEGAL license, learn to (1) put your eight kids in car seats like the rest of and (2) learn to drive on ice and snow!!!"

Where did all that anger come from? :)

"Right. You have no response that is appropriate, do you?"

Tammy, I thought that response WAS appropriate. But let's try this again: You are no more of an American than I am. I don't care if your people came over on a boat as slaves or by their own free will. If you can't tell me the name of your tribe I suggest you shut the f**k up.

As for the name calling, you are right, that wasn't very nice, and it does reflect poorly on me as a person. One should never insult a lady ( I am assuming you are one) in such a manner. Please forgive me for talking about you in such a rude way....

Tammy is stupid. Her argument is not one made even in semi-intelligent company. The last time this argument was even heard was on Archie Bunker---and that was disputed soundly by a mere meathead.

Tammy is not ready for primetime. She is wasting space on this blog. Please be quiet, Tammy.

About the white guy, the huggable (see his side picture) davidsullivan above, about his drug-addicted brother, you've about convinced me that whites people are just uneducable. Can't you see that your brother's circumstance is so colored by race? His positive treatment--even according to you, his brother--would have been so much more severe were he black.

Blacks also might be able to celebrate the possible medicinal benefits of a drug sentence if they could expect relatives mixing their own private batches of moonshine, crack or even potent perm to receive a sentence of just one year--for rest and rehab in the county jail--like the drunk in Mayberry.

Tammy,i was born an raised here in amerikkka.& this country has a massive drug problem.It isnt all black or brown.white people are the biggest consumers of illegal drugs.check your beloved statistics for further proof.mostly rich,well to do so called good kids OD.THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN AFFORD ENOUGH DOPE TO KILL THEMSELVES. LOL

Oh, Field, I was with you until your second response to Tammy. Please, Jamaicans, are less American than domestic slave descendants. Moreover, it is hard--honestly--to take criticism from Jamaicans of America when Jamaicans refuse to do anything for their own country--but spend their efforts figuring out how to better exploit the benefits of America.

For the life of me---and I have spent considerable time thinking about this--why the hyper-educatedrental property-owning Jamaican can't seem to ever build up their own country. It is cyclically economically stagnant or regressing.

@Tammy- you may want to look up the 14th amendment to the Constitution. In case you don't have the time:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So assuming that any person was born or naturalized in the U.S., the only legal difference between them is whether they can be President of the U.S.A.

Frankly, we're all nth generation immigrants, it's just that for some of us, n=1. Along one grandparental line, I'm a third generation immigrant. Along another, I'm more like a twelfth generation immigrant. Along another, I'm even further back (centuries?). However, this isn't Africa; Homo Sapiens didn't initially evolve here. So the only question is how long your ancestors have been here.

raven - I am literally LOL - b/c there is not way to out whine a white man... and I say that as a whiny white gal... we are some whiny ass folks....

I do think its naive to NOT acknowledge that there are essentially two systems/realities at play with regards to the criminalization of drugs and people of color. The reality is- as a white woman I am very unlikely to be targeted unless I am engaged is some totally bodacious activity with regards to drugs. I am going to be offered treatment ... (yeah, yeah - sure there are few well publicized exceptions...), but lets face it - there are clearly two systems in place.

I had a gig working with a medical group who was working with cannabis as medicine - great arguments and research out there for why compassionate use makes total sense. Low toxicity, great for pain and inflammation and insomnia, etc. Solid research out of England and research - cheap.

Part of the work done was looking at ways to address the reality that there were two systems of enforcing the criminalization of weed used as medicine. I live in Cali and MDs can recommend marijuana for medicinal purposes so possession and use is not typically criminalized if you are white and your papers are in order. Anyway, just saying - there is way less risk for me to use weed medicinally (or any other way) should I choose to do so than say for my husband (african american). And this was one of the realities we educated patients on...

I wonder about the bigger implications of decriminalizing drugs. It would gut the prison complex (profit) system and take a huge bite out of the market for alcohol and potentially pharamcaeutical profits... .

"Moreover, it is hard--honestly--to take criticism from Jamaicans of America when Jamaicans refuse to do anything for their own country--but spend their efforts figuring out how to better exploit the benefits of America."

Anon. I am assuming you are African American correct? If you are, what makes you think you have a greater stake in A-merry-ca than I do? I agree with you about West Indians,and other foreigners (And not just Jamaicans, we seem to be the easy ones to pick on, but I will accept that) not doing more for their country, and that they should be giving back more often. I won't get into a pissing match about all that I have given back to my country, as well as YOURS, because it really wouldn't add to this discussion. But let's just say that if we were keeping score I would do alright.

Your defense of your country is honorable, but I would suggest that you save your strong feelings of displeasure for someone that hasn't done shit to try and improve it.

I might not have been born here, but I consider myself a citizen of A-merry-ca, Jamaica, Africa, China, Russia...or anywhere else on this damn planet. Period!

As a human being I have the right to talk shit about any country on this planet that I damn well feel like. Please don't start with your Pat Buchanan nationalistic talking points with me.

If you don't like me talking shit about A-merry-ca, maybe you should try joining Tammy and the frat boy to get laws passed that would stop me.

RavenR: Where is the whining in my comment? Whats with the blanket generalizations? How foolish would it be if I said "no one eats fried chicken like a black man".

My point was that you can not make these generalizations based on race. If you want to base it on income then fine. If you say that meth is the white mans drug then are you going to say crack is the black mans drug?

Either way it is poor, drug addicted people, trying to find a cheap high who are victims of prejudice, as the rich man who snorts powder or abuses prescription medication walks away, still drug addicted, but without stigma.

By the way. You said "you've about convinced me that whites people are just uneducable" Uneducable is not a word.

Sounds like you need some remedial education! I'm sure with some help you are educable.

Look man, the anger comes from a day of horror down here in DC and Maryland, as it happens each year at the first snowfall!

But my GNP comment was double-edged. On the bad side, the nation would go bankrupt providing the help tens of millions of folk would need to just get the emotional support necessary to attack the root causes of addiction, as again, poverty, lack of education, etc. are only partial causes.

Tammy: Field can defend himself, but I have to agree that if you are here and a citizen then you are an American and comment however you wish about your country. Your comments remind me of those I heard in the 70's "send 'em all back to Africa if they don't like it here". If my Great-Grandmother were still alive she would bitch slap you for saying she wasn't American just because she was born in Ireland. She had to put up with so much prejudice and shit to be here that she earned her keep. Unless you are a recent "off the boat" person of color, then your ancestors earned your keep for you. Tammy, the same people who colonized America were the same people who brought African slaves to Jamaica.

whoooooooooaaaaaaaa!!!! way to go field! you got a hot one going on here today! I LOVE IT! introduce race, drugs, jail/prison time, nationalism into a reasonable thinking community and all hell breaks loose. ok, my take: there's clearly two legal systems in place here, based on race. i should know, i've been a social worker and dealt with these women, men and children for ever. the people coming out of corrections for crack use are by far minority, the people coming out for coke and meth use are almost exclusively white. crack lands you a longer stay in the big house. by far. david sullivan, i agree with you that the large majority of people doing time on drugs are relatively less well off. to the anonymous commenter on jamaicans and really, any other non-birthed-here-americans, i am dissapointed in you. and you tammy, as well. i am not trying to insult you, but you both just seem so limited. it's nice that you took some time to air your opinion, i just wish you had a little more insight and rendered a little more concrete thought into your statements. at least dig around a little bit to find out what the tenor of this blog before launching an attack on it's the people who participate in this community. it's called POSITIONING YOURSELF CONTEXTUALLY. some people might call it "covering your intellectual ass," just so you provide yourself SOME measure of credibility. anyways, i'm off to go shopping. i have to buy a ride off craigslist, and i gotta watch out for those damn africans and asians out there on I-5! ps: don't be trite in responding by correcting my spelling or grammar. i literally can't care about your editing skills.

RavenR: and one more thing...you seem to make alot of assumptions about people based upon sterotypes and appearance. You didn't characterize me as the "opinionated" david sullivan or the "pedantic" david sullivan, but the "huggable" david sullivan. You are basing your characterization of me on a picture, not on my words or thoughts. Do you do that with all people? White people, Black people.

BTW: If you really look at the picture its my kid thats huggable, as he is the one being hugged. If you find me huggable too, then I am flattered! :)

With you 100%. I don't smoke either, but it seems to me, in a free society, you should have the right to ingest whatever you want so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. I'm puzzled as to why marijuana is still illegal; the government could make tons of money off of taxes.

"So called" FieldNegro said, If you don't like me talking shit about A-merry-ca, maybe you should try joining Tammy and the frat boy to get laws passed that would stop me.

Actually, I WOULD like to see a law passed that is directed at people who were not born in America. The law would make it clear that if you were not born here and you are caught bad mouthing this country, you would immediately lose your right to citizenship or green card and you'd be given a FREE ticket back to your place of birth.

I'd love to see people like you put out of here. Go complain about Jamaica. There is a looooooong list of problems over there.

Tammy: "I've never understood people who come to this country, enjoy all the fruits that this country has to offer, then have the nerve and audacity to insult this country by misspelling the name, etc."

Just curious, do you understand why FN is spelling America like A-merry-ca? Baatin wrote about the importance of "context" and in this case it might provide a clearer explanation of the spelling.

To Christopher Chambers on the DC/MD snow: I think the problem is that the area doesn't get consistent snow which contributes to most EVERYONE not being able to drive when it arrives. I stayed at work until 7pm last night and by then the roads were pretty clear.

baatin: Being a frequent blogger, I would never usually call out someone on grammar or spelling, but when you ("You", meaning, RavenR)call a race of people "uneducable" you look foolish when you are using a word that doesn't exist. Love the irony!

I find most attempts to introduce into, redirect from, or enlarge race discussions into conversations about class a sleight of hand.

And when performed by a white man, an attempt to call attention to himself without regard to the impact to the people of color initiating the conversation. That is, it is an insensitive, sneaky trick to restore white privilege.

BTW, uneducable is a word--but even if it were not--we who have contributed more words more recently to the lexicon--reserve the right to make up new ones.

"So called" FieldNegro said, If you don't like me talking shit about A-merry-ca, maybe you should try joining Tammy and the frat boy to get laws passed that would stop me.

Actually, I WOULD like to see a law passed that is directed at people who were not born in America. The law would make it clear that if you were not born here and you are caught bad mouthing this country, you would immediately lose your right to citizenship or green card and you'd be given a FREE ticket back to your place of birth.

I'd love to see people like you put out of here. Go complain about Jamaica. There is a looooooong list of problems over there."

And most of their problems start from here in Amerikkka, Kitten.

Look, I have an AmeriKKKan-born negro who feels the way you do. He got all incensed over Ms. America getting booed in Mexico on his podcast. Check him out at Afronerd.com.

Anyway, if you have ever heard from anyone from the West Indies or Central America, South America, etc., complain about poverty and drug or drug dealing, you don't have to look any farther than the place of shopping-addicted soccer moms, teen girls who dress like porn stars, and cops who protect building and businesses more than they supposedly protect people. We live soft, but steal other countries' natural resources to live the way we do. Look at Iraq, what was Vietnam about? And if we are not stealing, then we are manipulating the politics of other countries. We wanted Russia to have the same political defeat in Afghanistan as we had in Vietnam(Russia should not have been there and they deserved to fail), so we supported the very people who some would later become the Taliban. In central America, we TRAINED and created one of the most murderous regimes in Northern America, the Death Squads of El Salvador and the government that they supported just6 so we would have another Nicaragua. Sadam Hussain was our boy and we built him up to be the second most powerful Central Asian/Midddle East regime to be able to keep Iran from being the most powerful in that area. We hated Toussaint L'Ouverture so much for daring to rebel against slavery and WINNING and claiming their own country without begging or hoping some good lawyer will save them, that America (yes, and France) still refuses to recognize them as a independent country and so America invades them whenever they feel like it to send a message to Haitians as well as other Carribean and Global south people; "WE-OWN-YOU, We can go wherever we like, take whatever we like when we want it, and if we don't like your leaders, we will kill them. I read a book called Born Fi Dead. If I was some ignorant American like you, Tammy, I would probably have shook my head and said, "Tsk, tsk. Those Jamaicans are killing each other over political elections, and drugs", Well I know better. Nothing goes on under America's nose that they don't know about; the same anti-colonial movements that swept Asia, Africa, and the Middle East during the 60s and 70s also swept the islands, and Central America. All streotypes aside, the Rastafarians and god know who else put fear in the ruling classes of these Island-nations that were no longer under colonial rule. But AmeriKKKa being a nation of sugar addicts, wants their sugar and their rum, so we back up any asshole from the ruling classes of these countries by either funding their military or tearing down the infrastructure of those who pose an idealogical threat. I beleieve Jamaica had two assholes. Neither one of them have a scaratch on them, but the blackl folx who supported are dead, dead, dead. But my suspicions are that America was doing their usual dipping and dapping to keep the backyard clean and radical-free.

Lastly Tammy, you say you were born here, "warts and all". That's so sweet. But was it sweet when in 1934 two Electric Auto-Lite Strikers were killed in Toledo, OH, and over two hundred wounded by National Guardsmen? Some 1300 National Guard troops, including included eight rifle companies and three machine gun companies, were called in to "disperse" the protestors? Was that a wart? What about when this country spied on its citizens; not post 9/11, but during the 60s when we some of us in this country DARED to oppose an American war? Was that a wart, Tammy?

I come here to post because I am trying to subvert the Black mans efforts to network and to convince him that us whites are OK so the Black mans guard is down and we can continue to dominate....whu hu hu hu hu ha(evil laughter). You still don't get the point. By attacking an INDIVIDUAL who happens to be of a different race by grouping his intentions with those of a group whom you mistrust is inherintly racist. Stop with the blanket references. Try replacing White in some of your comments with Black and you'll see how insensitive you are.

"And when performed by a white man, an attempt to call attention to himself without regard to the impact to the people of color initiating the conversation. That is, it is an insensitive, sneaky trick to restore white privilege."

So after bad-mouthing the 14th amendment, you're also dissing the 1st amendment. This is an interesting position for someone who claims to love their country. What other parts of the most fundamental document of our government do you dislike?

Again, if you choose not to look it up, I'll make it easy for you:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

On Africans and Asians being bad drivers.How many of you have travelled outside America to citiesin the developing world like Lagos, Joburg, Nairobi? If you can drive there then you truly are a good driver.

On Marijuana, I would say legalize it if it did not smell so bad. If you are not well -and I sympathize with you -why not let sbd extract and or synthesize the active ingredient that way you can protect your lungs.

I say let the liquor stores sell pot, and no one else. After all, they already have to minotor the 21 and over scene pretty closely. And if they made more profit selling pot than booze, would they care? Hell no.

i know i'm mad late and all, but christopher chambers - in response to your GNP comment: the thing is, studies have shown that if the government were to treat addicts instead of imprisoning them, the amount of money saved would be monumental. treatment isn't just cheaper than imprisonment, it's almost exponentially cheaper. so this is not really about saving money as much as its about imprisoning minorities. and thats fucked up.

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"Real talk: Daniel Rubin has a great little piece up wherein he chats with The Field Negro, the Philly-based blogger who sharply ponders all things black on a daily basis. (Seriously, if you’ve never checked in with TFN, you should: Its author, Wayne Bennett, is a fantastic read who can cut through bullshit like a hot knife through butter, which is a far grosser analogy than I wanted to make, but there you have it.)" ~Philebrity~

"One of the most precocious and hilarious Black political minds on the net. Ive been a long-time fan!" ~Asad Malik~

"..While most of what he writes is tongue-in-cheek, his space is a safe house for candid discussions about race, especially in the comments section, where people of all colors meet."~~Daniel Rubin, "The Philadelphia Inquirer"~~

"To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs."

~~Richard Fausset, "L.A. Times"~~~

"That's why I love the blog "Field Negro" so much. Field, as he's known to his fans, has the sense of reality that it takes to call out the (CowPuckey) of blame beating by those who are in positions of power and their lackeys. Because of his handle and his unabashed way of writing about racial issues, Field is often cited as a "Black blogger." What he is, however, is a first-class detector of blame deflection and an excellent student of history. If you want to write about the past and future of repression there's really no other perspective to take - which is why everyone should read Field."

"Half a century after Little Rock, the Montgomery bus boycott and the tumultuous dawn of the modern civil rights era, the new face of the movement is Facebook, MySpace and some 150 black blogs united in an Internet alliance they call theAfroSpear.

Older, familiar leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, are under challenge by a younger generation of bloggers known by such provocative screen names as Field Negro, thefreeslaveand African American Political Pundit. And many of the newest struggles are being waged online."~Howard Witt-The Chicago Tribune~

"I had no idea, for example, of the extent of the African-American blogging world out there and its collective powers of dissemination.But now, after reading thousands of anguished, thoughtful comments posted on these blogs reflecting on issues of persistent racial discrimination in the nation's schools and courtrooms, what's clear to me is that there's a new, "virtual" civil rights movement out there on the Internet that can reach more people in a few hours than all the protest marches, sit-ins and boycotts of the 1950s and 60s put together." ~Chicago Tribune Reporter, Howard Witt~